Today's scene

[stormbringer]

[ SPLITTED THIS THREAD FROM ORIGANAL ONE ]

Just turned 34 a month ago. However I still feel younger (at least in my mind)...

I would not say "been there, done that", but almost. I used to be "active" in the "scene" during the golden C64 & Amiga days.

Basically the demo-scene started with the C64. Before that there was almost no scene. For a very good reason. The C64 was the first real home-computer and had the minimal set of multi-media capabilities to attract the masses. Before that, computers were tools for engineers. Of course I'm not talking about video game consoles, that could not be programmed at that time without being... a very skilled engineer.

The scene started especially with mags printing code (BASIC and machine code, aka assembler) in their monthly issues. The funny thing was that the original C64 documentation was full of errors and there were lots of "do not do this, or do not touch that, we do not know what will happen". And the first "demo sceners" did exactly what was forbidden.

A good example is the C64. The engineers made it to handle 8 sprites, no more. How great it was when a mag (German if I remember correctly, that's where everything started about the scene IMHO) published a "hack" to display 56 sprites on screen. Even the Commodore engineers were surprised. That was what the scene was about => looking for new ways to achieve things.

To be honnest, today the scene seems to be ruled by Nvidia and slowly followed by ATI (if??). They bring the new stuff and they show the so-called "new-sceners" how to play with the hardware.

Personally, I do not have much interest for casual hackers that look for hidden Win32 APIs or addresses to release their 1.5 bit intros that display an XOR pattern. Usually these work on their machine only and most of the time crashes the ones from the audience. Pretty lame.

Another extreme is the intros that overload the graphics card with geometry and textures and again, unless you are the lucky owner of the last Nvidia Quadro, you cannot watch it properly.

Of course I'm totally against DirectX because you have to download gigabytes of libraries made by someone else, just to watch a 256byte intro. Lame! Direct X maybe justified for games, but not 256bytes intros, sorry.

In the good old days (ouch, I'm talking like I'm going to die soon...) everyone had more or less the same hardware. Only the skills of the coders would push the machines beyond their initial purpose. I remember that at some point (on Amiga), the teams where looking for ways to optimize their code to display as many BObs (for Blitter Objects) on screen. How do you do that now? just buy an new graphics card to display more???

So all this to say that yes, the scene is ageing... not because it's a dying art (some still know how to takle it), but mainly because people feel very little need to get more of their machines. They just buy a new PC, new graphics card, new this and new that and that's it.

[Shockwave]

I agree with a fair bit of what you said Stormbringer, not all though.
A lot of people get a kick out of developing tiny stuff, it's as much of an art form as anything other discipline you can do.

Where I really do agree with you is directx.
Sure, I am bound to upset a few people, but it's almost guaranteed not to work somewhere when you release your latest Directx application, and yes, to watch a 4kb it seems to be a little bit of a liberty to depend on a 1.6mb dll...

Opengl all the way.

I hate the way Microsoft fuck everything up. They have to do everything different and because 99.9% of people use M$ stuff in some way, everyone has to cater for thier stupid, memory and processor hungry shit.

Wow.. Off topic or what? 

[stormbringer]

Hehe, as usual my post was a bit "extreme". I'm not trying to be arrogant. I do have respect for a lot of people, still. But please some of these tiny prods belong here to this forum as experiments and examples not releases on II, pouet.net and others. There are some nice small-sized prods, but so few compared to the mass of XOR-ed crap available out there.

Regarding DirectX, again, it's a tool. I think it make a lot of sense for writing games (although I prefer OpenGL) because of all the tools provided to handle images, sound, gaming devices etc.

However, as you said, Shockwave, releasing a 4k with great pride and force you to download a 700MB package from Microsoft to watch it, I find it just a bit too much.

Maybe ageing makes me become and extremist (hehe)... who knows. I just have the feeling that very few of the new prods will be remembered, even by the new generation. They all look like commodities and are just made to be consumed. The old-school generation, however, remembers with great pleasure, some significant productions released in the old days. Weird isn't it?

[rain_storm]

stormbringer an interesting point that you made in the post before shocky about hardware being mostly the same in the past and not so much nowadays. there is a good bit more to todays computers. people write games, make music with Fruity Loops, 3ds max, photoshop, these people would have been potential demosceners in the past but they found different things suited their needs just as well. The new recruits are being diluted with all of todays choices.

also most people dont take any notice if you tell them that this demo is only 64kb and runs in real time. they look at you funny cos filesize is not something they even consider important and real time will require some explaination. thats cool with me. maybe the demoscene is going back underground?

[stormbringer]

Regarding the potential demosceners using FL, 3DSMax or Photoshop, well in the past we had SoundTracker (and its endless variations), LightWave and Deluxe Paint. That did not prevent people from participating. But one thing that is different maybe is that back then, the demos were technical and artistical acheivements. Compared to commercial productions (games), demos were flying far above. Today I have the feeling that it's the opposite. Which makes me think it may be a reason why people care so little about demos.

Also maybe the modern demos have moved too much towards what people call "art". Ok, art is broad and it's difficult to comment about... but IMHO, there is ART and (f)art. Nowadays there is too much (f)art sold for the price of ART.

Very few people make nice visual demonstrations and I've seen too many cubes combined with XOR textures, combined with cubes, combined with XOR textures, etc. Is this a real demo: http://www.intro-inferno.com/production.php?id=3397 ?? or another nice one: http://www.intro-inferno.com/production.php?id=6247 .. well you know what I mean. It's full of these.
How can you drag people's interest to these things??? They definitely kill the "demo scene"... and only leave guys in the 30's with their nostalgia. Which is a shame because today we can do what yesterday we could only dream of..

[benny!]

Interesting topic. I have 100%ly the same feeling like you,
stormbringer. And to be honest - I struggle with myself if it
is not a waste of time to produce scene related stuff in my
sparetime or not.

Nowadays games set so high standards - nearly no demo/intro
reaches their quality. The spirit of the cracktros are not present
anymore and "normal" ppl do not care about filesizes. In addition
they simply want to see something and do not care if it is real-
time or not. All bigger/advanced demos now offer a video ver-
sion because their demo might not run on all hardware etc.

Where is a place for the scene now ?

Concerning cracktros and the illegal part of it I tried to discuss
this in this post I wrote (Defacetros).

In addition, this means that intros/defactros are written to be run
in the browser (in Flash, Java applets). I guess that could be a
platform which could attract "normal" ppl and this could be chal-
lenging. Look at all the fun portals where they link to flash anims
and so on. Furthermore, a lot of web agencies are producing and
selling banners/intros for websites mostly using FLASH. When you
have a look at ActionScript3 for example - it offers some nice
coding features. There is something like a shader in the new version,
too.

So, in this context - there could be a parallel to the oldschool
scene. If demoscene-freaks code fx the world has never seen
before on flash - this could create the "wow"-effect by normal
user.

Another possibility for better effects may be lay in the field you
already described once for me (broadcast/film industry).

[mentor]

How about making a production that compares by todays standards. we are talking a real demo, 64k or 4k, not just
some starfield with a scrolltext . When you have done this, come back and tell me with a straight face that:
1. No one optimizes their code anymore, they just buy a bigger PC.
2. Demo coding is a dying art
3. Coding new effects is 'easier' than in the golden years.
4. Making a size limited productions is only a matter of api hacking.
5. Random incoherent rant about sprites and starfields.
6. ...

It is true that things are 'easier' now in the sense that a spinning cube or a scrolltext is trivial to code and make it run sufficiently fast. The thing is, people don't just make spinning cubes and scrolltexts anymore (at least some don't). I honestly believe that the bar is higher today and creating something that is on par takes a lot more skill and creativity than in 'the golden years'.

Having a fixed platform in terms of speed is not something that is ever going to happen on the PC. Taking into account the hardware used and the speed, one can usually judge the 'quality' of the code. People wanting hard limits go for 4k intros or console demos. No wonder 4k coding has become so popular recently, right?

Maybe ageing makes me become and extremist (hehe)... who knows. I just have the feeling that very few of the new prods will be remembered, even by the new generation. They all look like commodities and are just made to be consumed. The old-school generation, however, remembers with great pleasure, some significant productions released in the old days. Weird isn't it?

Couldn't agree more. Most productions will be forgotten, some 'significant' productions will be remembered. It was true then, it is true now. I think your nostalgia makes you severely underestimate the amount of bad and mediocre productions in 'the golden years'. With several thousand productions, don't tell me they were all memorable. Will productions like fr-08, kkrieger, debris, lifeforce, heaven seven, starstruck, chaos theory, the popular demo, etc. not be remembered?

Which 256b intros require directx? what 700mb package do you need to watch directx intros? windows xp?

I might be a little 'extreme' here, but this oldfart'ery is making me barf.

[hellfire]

In the good old days [...] the skills of the coders would push the machines

Just like in "the good old days" there are only a few recent demos which make good use of the hardware while most productions just waste resources thoughtlessly.
With the advent of aga & turbos things weren't much different in the amiga-scene.
Obvious hardware-limitations are just vanishing more and more; I don't think that's a bad thing - it just shouldn't be an excuse for clumsy coding.

I think your nostalgia makes you severely underestimate the amount of bad and mediocre productions in 'the golden years'.

Well, in "the golden years" things like mail-trading were a wonderful quality-control - today we watch the newest 5 crap-pouet-additions while having breakfast...

[Motorherp]

I think some of what you say rings true stormbringer but in my opinion there's a flip side to this which you've missed.  I'm going to play devils advocate here so please dont be offended, I'm just throwing out ideas. 

Ok, so in short, perhaps the reason you're not pleased with the new scene is because you're still hanging onto the concepts of the old scene which long ago evolved and left you behind, you just haven't evolved with it?  I'll address some of your points to try and make what I'm saying clearer.  You say that people dont feel the need to get the most out of their machines.  Well I dont believe this is true, hardware has always been growing and expanding at this rate, in that respect it's no different now than it was back in the c64 days.  Today there's still an upper limit to the technology you can get commercialy, and that people dont always have the most up to date tech at home is no different than it was back then, not everyone upgraded to the more powerful versions of the BBC Micro or Amiga or bought the ram upgrades you could get.  The spectrum of possible hardware and configurations is wider now than in the past but there was still a variation then all the same and it didn't stop people from wanting to push the limits and instead just resign to getting better hardware. 

What is different is that finding some new low-level hardware programming trick on the old machines could make a large difference since the power of those machines was so limited.  Although the increase you got might have only been small, it was a significant percentage of the total available performance.  Now however such tricks are mostly just drops in the ocean.  Therefore the modern scene evolved and the focus more on algorithmic, artistic, and scientific improvements.  The first two should be pretty obvious what I mean, but by scientific I mean advancing current models or developing new ones based on real world science to create more realistic effects such as better lighting models for example.  A lot of skill is needed first to understand such things but then also to come up with sensible approximations and optimisations which when combined with hardware knowledge and algorithmic skill allow them to be simulated in realtime.  It's true that NVidia as well as the Microsoft graphics research team often make the first steps in these areas, but they aren't dictating to you what you can or cant do with the hardware.  This is only the case if you allow yourself to be spoonfed by them and shut of your mind to new possibilities.  There's nothing stopping you from going out and creating new models to simulate effects that haven't been done yet, or to imprive existing models, except for your own skill.  This is probably where a lot of the old sceners get left behind, because their skill sets are focussed heavily on hardware and not mathimatics or science which is now increasingly important to stay ahead of the field.

Finally with regards to DirectX, I feel it has it's place in the new scene.  Since like discussed the focus has shifted from low level hardware to scientifically complex effects which often require much experimentation.  In these conditions productivity is more important than absolute efficiency and directX is the most comprehensive graphics development library out there.


PS:  Just a reminder I'm not attacking you or trying to demean your skill.  Just playing devils advocate to put forward an alternative point of view  .  All discussions welcome, please pick it apart .

[premium^prd]

For me, the biggest difference between the so called "golden years" and today is that in past, your limits where set by the hardware, it does not care how ugly the effect looked if it was something totaly new, like "cube-o-matic" or the 3million bobs on ham8 . But today, the limit is the creativity of the team doing a demo,not the HW, if you code some asskicking stuff, no one will realize it if the design is butt ugly.

[stormbringer]

@mentor: you take all this on a personal level, you are a bit wrong. It's needless to start such a discussion. I never compared the 2d starfiled (you obviously make reference to my remakes) with some advanced coding. As I stated on another site, I do not claim being highly skilled by coding some small Amiga cracktros. Sorry mate you are on the wrong path here. Plus you do not know me very well. You defend you stuff, great. I did not remember mentioning you or your prods. Unless the examples I gave above are yours (I hope not!). Remakes are one thing, please leave them out of this discussion as they are definitely off topic and just fun to (re)make.

I simply stated (probably with some obvious nostalgia) that the golden days are gone. Yes they're gone not because the Amiga or the C64 died, but because the spirit of discovery that was present at that time is gone. While I appreciate the ability to code some nice 4k intro, I do not discover anything new by watching a screen full of cubes, sorry. The new scene has changed, it is definitely different from I like and seems I'm not the only one with the same feelings.

Sorry again if I consider the examples I gave above as (f)art! I will not change my position on this. Please also keep in mind that I'm not a lost cause crying all day because my youth is gone! I do appreciate the present and definitely enjoy the future. I'm not a guy living in the past. But please understand that the "golden days" are gone, because a lot of stuff like it happened back then will never happen again. It's not just the Amiga and my favorite toys, it's a whole era that is gone and there is no possibility to have it again. Again as I stated, back then it was a bit like the Gold Rush, you had companies like Commodore selling an incredible amount of machines, but not only them... Microsoft was just building its immense empire, Sun Microsystems was going from 0 USD income to 4 billion USD in 4 years, etc.

The difference is that now such things cannot happen that easily. It takes much more efforts to break through. That's what I really mean. And regarding the scene, although there are really good productions around (I just enjoyed a good one by Hitchhikr and another one by Keops) they are overwhelmed by crap. Will the good one be remembered? I hope so, but I have some doubts, not because they are not good enough, but because as I stated above (again!) nowadays, everything is made to be consumed. The new generation of people may just forget about these prods because the feel it this way. Not because they are bad of made by people with little talent. In these famous "golden years" some things will be remembered because they were really outstanding, compared to what was availabe.

[rain_storm]

@stormbringer: you have a very good insight into these old skool demos and I agree with what you say. They did have to work much harder back then. They had to fight with the hardware. And the solutions that were dreamt up are absolute gems.

@all: we have APIs today so nowadays we can produce a 64kb demo very easily that demo may actually execute many MegaBytes of code inside DLLs. This code comes for free but back in the day there were no such freebies. If you wanted a spinning cube then you had to put on your thinking hat and get busy with some trigonometry. If you needed some text then you had to code a scrolling routine that displayed a hand made font. If you needed a bitblit function you had to do it yourself. All this done with a limited colour pallet in the past. Now we can relax and let openGL32 and d3d do all this for us in true colour.

Still I dont think any of the new skool demosceners are ignorent to the maths behind a spinning cube. I for one have no problem doing my own version of glRotate3f. It may not be as effecient but it will work. We choose to make use of the DLLs because its there, taking advantage of it does not make us lesser programmers than the guys of old (unless you DONT know how to get a cube spinning by hand then the old skool guy has pwned you). But the existence of such things as DLL has 'raised the bar' as someone said. But we still have people clearing that bar. and raising it further. Has the bar gotten too high for the majority of the scene

[Shockwave]

It's interesting for me to look at this topic, some guys who I really respect have posted here, in fairness, everyone who posted here have done some really respectable work but it doesn't mean that anybodies opinion is more valid than the next person.

[stormbringer]

@Shockwave: true words. I made some pretty strict statements here, while I'm actually much more open-minded than it appears. Let the "new-scene" be what it's going to be. If the majority likes it as it is now, so let it be. I'm not active anyway so my comments only apply to me Sorry if I offended anyone around, it was not my intention.

To mentor again, sorry dude, do not take what I say for your personal account, it's not my intention. I respect your work and I did not mix it with some crap I definitely do not like. Friends? 

[Motorherp]

@rain_storm: You seem to imply that API's have made it all easy and thus old school demos required more skill.  I dont think this is the case.  The API's are tools which can be used as stepping stones to work on more advanced techniques.  So yes, if all you want to make is the same spinning cube as seen in a retro demo then that requires much less skill now using a modern API.  However using the API's lets you skip ahead so you can get a head start with the spinning cube but then concentrate your efforts on creating some new global lighting pixel shader technique to render that cube.

[Shockwave]

@rain_storm: You seem to imply that API's have made it all easy and thus old school demos required more skill.  I dont think this is the case.  The API's are tools which can be used as stepping stones to work on more advanced techniques.  So yes, if all you want to make is the same spinning cube as seen in a retro demo then that requires much less skill now using a modern API.  However using the API's lets you skip ahead so you can get a head start with the spinning cube but then concentrate your efforts on creating some new global lighting pixel shader technique to render that cube.

There are lots of people who have written software routines that do just about anything (in terms of techniques) that modern API's like GL and DX can do.

As a programmer of both Opengl and software rendering, I think that it is more work to do anything in software.
It's got to be hasn't it?

By that I mean, that you have no head start.

Modern API's make it much faster to develop stuff and generally end up looking better because of enhanced screen resolutions and sub-pixel accuracy.

Someone who has developed a library of software routines for drawing and texture mapping and cameras could simply use thier own set of routines as stepping stones.

I can think of at least 4 people who are active members of this board who have done just that! Maybe try telling Stonemonkey that using a modern API requires more skill than software rendering.

Modern stuff is more about beautiful presentation, graphics and sound than anything.

These are just my own thoughts and not meant to offend anybody!

[Motorherp]

Maybe try telling Stonemonkey that using a modern API requires more skill than software rendering.

Well now you're just putting words in my mouth  .  Please dont get defensive, I'm not attacking anyone, I just find this an interesting debate.  Anyway my point was that the advanced stuff you do is stuff beyond what the API supplies.  The API itself is just a tool to quickly get you to that level.  Creating that new advanced shader or creating a software renderer both take skill, that is my point.  This also kind of leads onto what I was saying about changing skill sets.  Creating a software renderer (to the old school level anyway) would require maths and hardware knowledge, where as creating a new advanced shader is more focussed on maths and scientific knowledge.  You also dont have the advantage of walking a well trodden path, you're trying to do something new.

[Shockwave]

Take it one step further and look at the stuff that people like IQ, Mentor and Auld have made, there are several skills there including a very detailed understanding of file format and ways to strip out bytes..

btw, sorry I mis-interpreted this line I guess;

You seem to imply that API's have made it all easy and thus old school demos required more skill.  I dont think this is the case.

[Motorherp]

Indeed, dont get me wrong I have a lot of respect for people doing the old school too.  I guess the point I was trying to make not very successfuly is that the modern scene hasn't seen a reduction in skill required, just that different skills are required.  That of course is as long as your trying to push the boundaries anyway, but those boundaries have changed too.  The hardware is now less of a limiting factor and instead you're coming up against the boundaries of knowledge.  Anyway I dont want this to sound like I'm making myself out to be some kind of guru or anything, I'm nowhere near pushing any boundaries, I'm still trying to churn out the stuff that's been done a hundred times before.  But then that's why I'm here, because I'm trying to learn rendering techniques.

[mentor]

stormbringer:
Great, you just had me scrap a rather lengthy rant about the arrogance that is the ordfarts of the demoscene :/

I will behave myself and just note that what constitutes "the golden days" depends on the beholder. What you refer to as "the golden days" were golden because you were active at that time and the productions that you consider outstanding are so, because you can reminisce about them. Regardless of what happens in the future, it will never quite be the same as the time when you first got into the scene. Not because of the quality of releases, the spirit of the scene, the use of hardware, etc, but because of you. Not that you are any worse in this matter than anyone else.

To me, there is nothing golden or magic about your golden years, and I know little about the outstanding productions of that time. If I see them I will probably not be able to appreciate them, as they are from your golden time, not mine. I propose that we from now on refer to the period december 2000 (the release of fr-08, followed by an era of exceptional 64k intros) and beyond as "the golden years".

Now let's kiss and make up

Motorheap: couldn't agree more.

Shockwave: Make that at least 5. It is obviously true that using a graphics api is easier than writing everything yourself, I don't see anyone saying otherwise. Doing the same stuff is thus of course easier. The point is that people are not just doing the same tired old things. They are moving on and spending their time on more challenging techniques. It can be more advanced rendering, texture generation, realtime synthesizers, content creation tools, whatever.

I honestly don't believe that 3d coding is easier today, considering that the bar has been raised more than enough to compensate for not having to do vertex operations and rasterizisation of triangles yourself. This is of course assuming that you want to create stuff that is on par, if you are satisfied just rotating a cube, then things are of course way easier.